3 Ways TV Steals Kids' Time

Feb. 6, 2006 -- When kids spend a lot of time watching TV, they enter the land of the lost -- lost time, that is.

The more time kids spend watching TV, the less time they spend doing homework and relating to their parents and siblings. The finding appears in Pediatrics.

However, watching television didn't affect the time children spent reading, being read to, or being physically active, the study shows.

The researchers included Elizabeth Vandewater, PhD, of the University of Texas at Austin. They note the American Academy of Pediatrics' advice on TV time:

• No TV for kids less than 2 years old.
• Less than two hours per day of TV for older children.

How Kids Spend Their Time

Young or old, everyone gets the same amount of time each day -- 24 hours. It seems logical that spending more time watching TV would mean spending less time doing other things, the researchers note.

To test that idea, they tracked kids' time, minute by minute. Most studies of kids' TV viewing haven't done that, write Vandewater and colleagues.

They studied about 1,700 kids who were up to 12 years old. The kids' parents recorded the children's activities for a randomly chosen weekday and weekend day during the school year. Every minute of each day (and night) were accounted for.

Key activities included:

• Watching TV
• Interacting with parents
• Interacting with siblings
• Engaging in creative play (like drawing, playing dress-up, and playing with toys)
• Reading or being read to
• Engaging in active play (including sports, playing on a playground, and camping).

Time Sacrificed for TV

Spending more time watching TV meant spending less time interacting with brothers, sisters, and parents -- even while watching TV with those relatives, the study shows.

TV also stole time from homework. For kids aged 6 to 8, each hour of TV viewing cut weekday homework time by three minutes (14% decrease). For older kids, every hour spent watching TV shaved seven minutes (18% decrease) off their homework time.

Creative play also suffered as TV time rose, especially for younger children. Time spent in creative play also dropped for older viewers, though they spent less time in creative play to begin with, compared with younger children.

Time spent reading or being read to was not affected by TV time. But, kids didn't spend much time reading or being read to, regardless of TV, the study shows.

TV also didn't cut time spent in active play. Blaming TV for kids' inactivity might be unfair, though TV may contribute to kids' weight problems in other ways, the researchers note. For instance, they suggest that kids may consume more calories while watching TV or crave sugary foods advertised on TV.

Mixed Bag

"Clearly, then, some of the concerns regarding the impact of television viewing on children are justified," write Vandewater and colleagues.

"On the other hand, some of the concerns and assumptions regarding television have received little empirical support," they continue.

In some cases, TV might not be such a bad thing for families, the researchers note. "One must be careful not to assume that all time spent with parents will be 'good time,'" they write.

"There is a large body of evidence indicating that when parents are under stress, their interactions with their children are not always optimal," Vandewater's team points out.

"In fact, in other analyses, we have found evidence that when parents are under stress, they might be better off putting their children in front of the television to watch high-quality educational programming than interacting with them," they write.

"Although perhaps unfortunate, this is simply a reality of family life in America today," the researchers add.

They call for scholars to check how watching television affects daily life and health, for better or worse, since TV is here to stay.